18 December 2014

Many
tourists return home convinced that the Cuban model succeeds where the Soviet
model failed. But that’s because they never left Cuba’s Elysium.

I had
to lie to get into the country. Customs and immigration officials at Havana’s
tiny, dreary José Martí International Airport would have evicted me had they
known I was a journalist. But not even a total-surveillance police state can
keep track of everything and everyone all the time, so I slipped through. It
felt like a victory. Havana, the capital, is clean and safe, but there’s
nothing to buy. It feels less natural and organic than any city I’ve ever
visited. Initially, I found Havana pleasant, partly because I wasn’t supposed
to be there and partly because I felt as though I had journeyed backward in
time. But the city wasn’t pleasant for long, and it certainly isn’t pleasant
for the people living there. It hasn’t been so for decades.

Outside
its small tourist sector, the rest of the city looks as though it suffered a
catastrophe on the scale of Hurricane Katrina or the Indonesian tsunami. Roofs
have collapsed. Walls are splitting apart. Window glass is missing. Paint has
long vanished. It’s eerily dark at night, almost entirely free of automobile
traffic. I walked for miles through an enormous swath of destruction without
seeing a single tourist. Most foreigners don’t know that this other Havana
exists, though it makes up most of the city—tourist buses avoid it, as do taxis
arriving from the airport. It is filled with people struggling to eke out a
life in the ruins.

Marxists
have ruled Cuba for more than a half-century now. Fidel Castro, Argentine
guerrilla Che Guevara, and their 26th of July Movement forced Fulgencio Batista
from power in 1959 and replaced his standard-issue authoritarian regime with a
Communist one. The revolutionaries promised liberal democracy, but Castro
secured absolute power and flattened the country with a Marxist-Leninist
battering ram. The objectives were total equality and the abolition of money;
the methods were total surveillance and political prisons. The state slogan,
then and now, is “socialism or death.”

…

By the
1990s, Cuba needed economic reform as much as a gunshot victim needs an
ambulance. Castro wasn’t about to reform himself and his ideology out of
existence, but he had to open up at least a small piece of the country to the
global economy. So the Soviet subsidy was replaced by vacationers, mostly from
Europe and Latin America, who brought in much-needed hard currency. Arriving
foreigners weren’t going to tolerate receiving ration cards for food—as the
locals do—so the island also needed some restaurants. The regime thus allowed
paladars—restaurants inside private homes—to open, though no one from outside
the family could work in them. (That would be “exploitative.”) Around the same
time, government-run “dollar stores” began selling imported and relatively
luxurious goods to non-Cubans. Thus was Cuba’s quasi-capitalist bubble created.

When
the ailing Fidel Castro ceded power to his less doctrinaire younger brother
Raúl in 2008, the quasi-capitalist bubble expanded, but the economy remains
heavily socialist. In the United States, we have a minimum wage; Cuba has a
maximum wage—$20 a month for almost every job in the country. (Professionals
such as doctors and lawyers can make a whopping $10 extra a month.) Sure,
Cubans get “free” health care and education, but as Cuban exile and Yale
historian Carlos Eire says, “All slave owners need to keep their slaves healthy
and ensure that they have the skills to perform their tasks.”

Even
employees inside the quasi-capitalist bubble don’t get paid more. The
government contracts with Spanish companies such as Meliá International to
manage Havana’s hotels. Before accepting its contract, Meliá said that it
wanted to pay workers a decent wage. The Cuban government said fine, so the
company pays $8–$10 an hour. But Meliá doesn’t pay its employees directly.
Instead, the firm gives the compensation to the government, which then pays the
workers—but only after pocketing most of the money. I asked several Cubans in
my hotel if that arrangement is really true. All confirmed that it is. The
workers don’t get $8–$10 an hour; they get 67 cents a day—a child’s allowance.

I want
to believe the free trade rhetoric. I want to believe that any type of
relaxation of the embargo would benefit the Cuban people. I really do. But I
don’t, and here’s why.

Cuba’s
economy is not normal by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it actually
has two economies: the dollar economy, and the peso economy. Americans who are
allowed to visit get to participate in the dollar economy, and only the dollar
economy. Cubans who live there are required to participate in the peso economy,
and only the peso economy. The markets are completely segregated.

So,
when an American goes down there, he buys things with either the dollar, or the
Cuban version of the dollar (CUC), which generally has a 1:1 conversion ratio.
Cubans are forced to use only the peso (CUP), which has roughly a 25:1
conversion ratio to the dollar (for every 25 CUP, you get one dollar; or for every
1 CUP, you get about $0.04). That rate is set by the Cuban government. That
leaves Cuban vendors who accept dollars with only two ways of using those
dollars to get the things they need to survive: 1) purchase them on the black
market using dollars, a risky proposition for obvious reasons, or 2) exchange
the dollars for CUP.

There’s
no trading the CUP on the open currency market. Apart from sentimental souvenir
value, it’s worthless everywhere else in the world. Whenever a Cuban gets his
hand on a dollar, he either has to put himself at risk by using it on the black
market, or he has to turn the dollar into the government in order to receive a
pittance which he can use to buy food for his family.

The
Cuban government, in turn, has two ways of screwing its people out of their
hard-earned money: 1) it can either tax them to death, or 2) it can just
manipulate its exchange rate, a way to effectively tax them to death. Different
means, same ends. Cuba’s communist, after all, and communism is not a system that
has ever put the welfare of its people ahead of the welfare of its rulers.

The
result of the Cuban two-currency economy — one of which is forbidden to its
people — is that every dollar will eventually find its way into the hands of
the Cuban government. Since their internal currency, the CUP, is worthless,
it’s not like they can just exchange it for dollars on the open market, like
most other countries do. No, if the Cuban government wants dollars and the
wealth that comes with them, it has to import them. And more dollars don’t mean
more prosperity for the people of Cuba; more dollars means more wealth and
power concentrated in the hands of Cuba’s communist regime.

I’m a
big fan of free trade, in the real sense of the term. Free markets, free
people, and free flow of capital benefit everyone. But you can’t have ‘free
trade’ if you don’t have each of those components. Sure, more dollars may now
flow into Cuba, but that won’t result in freer people, freer markets, or freer
capital, because the current communist regime has no interest in allowing any
of those to happen.

If Cuba
truly wants free trade, then it needs to free its people, free its markets, and
free its currency. Until then, any changes to the trade embargo are just going
to be free money for corrupt Cuban communists.

Evidently, Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals are only meant to be used against white capitalists...

...not fat, little, murderous tyrants in North Korea...

How long before Pussified America caves and bans all blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammed (we know Obama, Clinton, and Kerry are already on board) when ISIS threatens to start bombing people, places, and things in the US?

And, damn it, it took Germany many decades to go from Prussification to Pussification. America is surrendering in light speed.

EJI
is proud to announce the release of our 2015 calendar, A History of Racial
Injustice. This full-color wall calendar expands on EJI’s previous calendars
with new historical entries and short essays highlighting historical events and
issues in our nation’s racial history.

The 2015 calendar is part of a series of
reports and educational materials that explore the legacy of racial bias in the
United States and its continuing impact on contemporary policies and practices.
Many of today’s issues have been shaped by America’s racial history – the
history of racial injustice in particular.

The
legacy of slavery, racial terror, and legally supported abuse of racial
minorities is not well understood.

EJI
believes that a deeper understanding about our nation’s history of racial
injustice is important to addressing contemporary questions of social justice
and equality.

The
calendar is designed to be a helpful tool for learning more about racial
history. Expanded content from A History of Racial Injustice is now available
in our online timeline.

These
freaks won’t be happy until they have white kids sitting in bathtubs of dye
like black children used to soak themselves in bleach.

Mark
my words: This White-Shaming will lead to dysmorphophobia and, when white
children begin committing suicide because of ‘white guilt’, their blood will be
on these people’s hands.

17 December 2014

'The authorities in my country have never tolerated that a black person oppose the regime. During the trial, the colour of my skin aggravated the situation. Later when I was mistreated in prison by guards, they always referred to me as being black.'

- Jorge Luis García Pérez, a Cuban human right and democracy activist, who was imprisoned for 17 years

'There is an unstated threat, blacks in Cuba know that whenever you raise race in Cuba, you go to jail. Therefore the struggle in Cuba is different. There cannot be a civil rights movement. You will have instantly 10,000 black people dead.'

- Carlos Moore, a Black Cuban writer, researcher, and social scientist, dedicated to African and Afroamerican history and culture

If I were a Republican
(I’m not) and in the Senate, do you know what I would do in January?

Commence Senate hearings
on the Apartheid State with its Jim Crow laws, Cuba. I’d invite all sorts of
dissidents and exiled Cubans to talk about the rampant, state-sponsored racism
against Black Cubans and also how the country treats its political prisoners
(You know, like Dr Oscar Elias Biscet, a Black Cuban dissident who was
sentenced to 27 years in jail, FOR COMMUNITY ORGANISING AND INSTRUCTING
BLACK CUBANS ABOUT THE TEACHINGS OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR!).

Then, after weeks of
gripping testimony concerning the racism, segregation, poverty, torture,
imprisonment, execution, and disappearances of Black Cubans and political
opponents, I would pass legislation calling for a BOYCOTT of APARTHEID CUBA.

After that, let’s see how
much the American people consider what Obama has done to be a ‘WIN’.

Let America’s First Black
President decide: Is he on the side of the fabulously wealthy and brutal Castro
Brothers or is he down with the struggle of Black Cubans and the OPPRESSED?

When I speak about how
blacks are treated in Cuba, I am not talking about how ‘some’ Cubans treat
their fellow citizens, who happen to be black. I am referring to STATE-SPONSORED
racism à la Jim Crow.

These
photos were sent to me by a great contributor to The Real Cuba. They
were taken at the Boca Ciega beach, near Havana. A white woman tourist came to
the beach accompanied by a black Cuban male. They sat on a lounge chair and
were chatting. Within a few minutes, a cop showed up and began asking the Cuban
black male for his identification. The cop kept interrogating the Cuban male for several minutes.Finally, the black Cuban male was forced to
leave the beach. No one knows if he was arrested, or just expelled from that
public beach for being with a white foreign woman.

Can you imagine the the
outrage of the NAACP, Harry Belafonte, Danny Glover, Jesse Jackson, Nelson
Mandela and Company if incidents like these happened anywhere else in the world
except in Castro’s private farm? In Cuba, the racist and fascist regime of the
Castro brothers is allowed to treat Cuban blacks like third class citizens, and
none of these hypocrites would say a word.

Here are some Black Cuban women being told to leave the 'white' beach:

This is how Black Cuban activists are treated...when they aren't being tortured and starved in prison:

How many of you supported
the boycott of Apartheid South Africa?

Listen, you might think
the claims of racism in Cuba are being overblown by me, but what would you say
if you knew that even Cornell West and the Reverend Jeremiah Wright have
condemned Cuba's treatment of its black citizens?

Dec. 1, 2009 - In a
landmark "Statement of Conscience by African-Americans," 60 prominent
black American scholars, artists and professionals have condemned the Cuban
regime's apparent crackdown on the country's budding civil rights movement.
"Racism in Cuba, and anywhere else in the world, is unacceptable and must
be confronted," said the document, which also called for the
"immediate release" of Dr. Darsi Ferrer, a black civil rights leader
imprisoned in July.Traditionally,
African-Americans have sided with the Castro regime and unilaterally condemned
the U.S. which, in the past, explicitly sought to topple the Cuban government.
But this first public rebuke of Castro's racial policies may very well indicate
a tide change and a more balanced attitude.Representing a wide
spectrum of political opinion, the document was signed by Princeton University
scholar Cornel West; famed actress Ruby Dee; former Essence magazine editor and
current president of the National CARES Mentoring Movement Susan Taylor;
Bennett College President Julienne Malvaux; UCLA Vice Chancellor Claudia
Mitchell-Kernan; Chicago's Trinity Church Emeritus pastor the Rev. Jeremiah
Wright; retired Congresswoman Carrie Meek; former Black Panther activist
Kathleen Cleaver; former Jesse Jackson presidential campaign manager and
current director of the African-American Leadership Institute Ron Walters;
movie director Melvin Van Peebles; and former Miami-Dade County Commissioner,
Betty Ferguson, and more.

Link to the actual
document of the Afro-American leaders about the racist regime in Cuba:

This is a replica of the
cell where Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, a Black Cuban dissident who was
sentenced to 27 years in jail, is being held. The replica of his cell was based
on the description that the Cuban doctor gave his wife, and was constructed in
the backyard of the home of James Cason, the chief of the United States
Interests Section in Havana, Cuba.

A little over six feet
high and three feet wide, the holding cell of wood and metal features a drain
on the floor for a toilet, a plastic bowl of food and a sheet for a pillow.And what horrible crime did Dr. Biscet commit, to be
sentenced to 27 years in this terrible dungeon?The Afro-Cuban doctor organized a seminar to teach his
fellow Cubans about Dr. Martin Luther King, the American civil rights leader,
and his non-violent forms of protest.In any civilized country,
Dr. Biscet would be commended for following the teachings of Dr. King, a Nobel
Peace Prize winner, but in Castro's animal farm, this is considered a serious
crime, and Dr. Biscet was sent to jail for 27 years!!!

So, for those of you
cheering President Barack Obama’s actions today, are you still happy that we
are enabling the further racism and oppression of the Castro Regime?

Is Apartheid only bad when
white people do it?

Are you really such big,
fucking hypocrites?

Oh, never mind. Your silence as radical Islam continues its
bloody war against women while screaming about ‘micro-aggression’ on American
college campuses tells me all that I ever need to know.